


London, Paris

by yet_intrepid



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Jehan and Feuilly start a conversation about William Blake's "London," and the discussion expands to include the rest of the amis.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“I remember that line,” said Combeferre. “It was one of my favorites. ‘Mind-forged manacles.’ Quite the image, I think, of ideas that oppress—forged by minds for minds, and sometimes those chained minds go on to forge chains for others in turn.”</p><p>Jehan nodded. “Or else the mind begins to produce its own chains.”</p><p>“Yes,” said Combeferre gravely. “That too.” He cast a glance at Grantaire, who was playing dominoes with Bahorel...</p>
            </blockquote>





	London, Paris

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twofrontteethstillcrooked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofrontteethstillcrooked/gifts).



> (The Cowper quote is an anachronism, off by about five years; it comes from a poem written--I believe--in 1836. It's included anyway because I had misattributed it up until the last minute and thought it was earlier.)

“And what did you think?” Jehan asked, as Feuilly again laid a borrowed volume, this time of poems translated from English, on the table between them. “I know poetry is not your usual fare.”

“No,” Feuilly said, slipping into the chair opposite Jehan, “but it was a good change. Blake is a very engaged writer—that is, certain of his poems are about nature and that sort of thing, but others are very forceful statements about poverty and social conditions…statements which, perhaps, he could not have made so freely in prose. I feel I’ve heard something said about that last bit, though it wasn’t about Blake.”

“Oh, you’re probably thinking of a bit from Cowper,” said Jehan. “I’ve quoted the selection before. _I / who scribble rhyme / to catch the triflers of time / and tell them truths divine and clear / which couched in prose they would not hear._ –But you liked it, then?”

“Yes,” said Feuilly. “Absolutely, yes.”

Jehan ducked his head, as though to have recommended a book and have it liked was the highest of compliments. “I am glad. Do you have a favorite piece?”

“Several.” Feuilly thought a moment. “But ‘London’ would definitely be one of the top few.”

“Ohhh,” said Jehan. “Yes. ‘London.’ Yes.”

“In fact,” said Feuilly, “I had thought that Enjolras might like it.”

Jehan burst into a radiant smile. “Feuilly. Oh, Feuilly, you have the best ideas.” And he leaned over his shoulder. “Enjolras!”

Enjolras looked up from his articles and Jehan beckoned him over. He took a seat at the end of the table, between them.

“Enjolras,” Jehan said, half-ecstatic with the idea, “Feuilly has something to show you. A poem we think you will like.”

Enjolras tilted his head to listen to Feuilly, who hesitated. “Erm,” he said. “It’s William Blake; have you heard of him? An English poet; he writes about—I like him because—”

And he reddened, feeling utterly ineloquent.

“Perhaps if you would read me the poem,” said Enjolras, “and afterwards, tell me why you like it?”

“Oh,” said Feuilly. “Of course. –It’s called ‘London.’” And he took up the book and began.

_I wander through each charter’d street_  
 _Near where the charter’d Thames doth flow_  
 _And there in every face I meet_  
 _Marks of weakness, marks of woe._

And Enjolras was drawn in. When Feuilly paused and looked at him, he spoke.

“It’s a poem of social misery, then.”

“Yes,” Feuilly said. “Exactly.” He felt a presence over his shoulder and turned to find Combeferre there, listening as well.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Combeferre said. “Is that Blake? I used to read a fair bit of Blake when I was younger; my parents thought poetry more innocent than Enjolras’ political volumes, though thankfully they never opened Blake to find what he actually wrote about. —We would have been fourteen or so, Enjolras; I told you it was poetry and you hadn’t much interest then.”

Enjolras smiled up at him. “I was young and foolish, I see—this appears to have much weight to it. Sit down, Combeferre.”

Combeferre did, and Enjolras gestured for Feuilly to go on reading.

_In every cry of every Man_  
 _In every Infant’s cry of fear_  
 _In every voice: in every ban_  
 _The mind-forg’d manacles I hear_

“I remember that line,” said Combeferre. “It was one of my favorites. ‘Mind-forged manacles.’ Quite the image, I think, of ideas that oppress—forged by minds for minds, and sometimes those chained minds go on to forge chains for others in turn.”

Jehan nodded. “Or else the mind begins to produce its own chains.”

“Yes,” said Combeferre gravely. “That too.” He cast a glance at Grantaire, who was playing dominoes with Bahorel.

The two of them noticed the glance and came over, leaving their game. “How are you fine citizens occupying yourselves, pray tell?” Grantaire asked. “More sober activities than our spirited games, I am not surprised to see.”

“We are reading Blake,” said Enjolras.

“I know Blake,” Grantaire said. “I can quote Blake—English, French translation, backwards if you please. Little lambs, tigers that burn in the night.” He squared his shoulders and thrust out an arm to recite dramatically: “What immortal hand or eye can frame thy fearful symmetry?”

“We are reading ‘London,’” said Jehan, smiling at his recitation. “Have you heard it?”

And Grantaire’s voice went flat at once. “No,” he said, and returned to his chair.

“Let me see this,” said Bahorel. “Enjolras reading poetry! Surely there is something worth knowing here.”

Feuilly showed him the page as he read on:

_How the Chimney-sweepers cry_  
 _Every blackning Church appalls,_  
 _And the hapless Soldiers sigh_  
 _Runs in blood down Palace walls_

“Aha!” cried Bahorel, clapping his hands. “Yes, let’s speak of the Church. Let’s speak of her gold and her cathedrals and her bishops’ palaces and salaries. Let’s talk about the black stains on her record. I am a peasant and not bourgeois; my family are good Catholics but they are not for the bishops and cardinals. If one must have a cathedral or a magnificent abbey, let it belong to the people, not to the monks. But as you build your monuments to faith and kindness, the poor are dying of hunger. As you gather your tithes, you teach that it is the powerful who can offer the people paradise. But they will not. If they did, how would they remain powerful?”

“And so they hear the sweepers cry,” murmured Feuilly, “and they are appalled, because—”

“Because of such should be the kingdom of heaven,” finished Jehan, “but they cannot bear that reminder, and will not let it be so.”

“The soldiers, too, that’s interesting,” put in Courfeyrac, coming up to peer at the page over Feuilly’s other shoulder. “It bypasses the deaths of those that the palace acts against to focus on blaming it for the sorrow and blood of its own soldiers, its own sons.”

Combeferre squinted. “Are you sure that’s who the soldiers are though? It’s not enemy soldiers? This is written by an Englishman, you know, and England is hardly known for insurgent activity.”

“You could swing it either way, I think,” Jehan said, “but I think Courfeyrac’s interpretation does make more sense. For one thing, he’s talking about London. The palace is in London, but the reference makes more sense if the soldiers are in or from London as well. But getting more into the text—the soldiers are ‘hapless,’ unlucky, like they’ve been drafted into service. It doesn’t explicitly state that the palace is shedding their blood, like it would probably say quite clearly were these enemy soldiers—it says their sighs run like blood. That makes me think of soldiers in camp, missing home, wondering what they’re fighting for and if it’s really worth dying over.”

“Even disagreeing with what they’re about to die over,” Combeferre said softly.

“Yes,” said Jehan. “Even that.”

They fell into reflective silence. Feuilly, feeling the heaviness that sat plainly on Enjolras’ brow and in Jehan’s eyes, went on reading in his even voice.

_But most thro’ midnight streets I hear_  
 _How the youthful Harlot’s curse_  
 _Blasts the newborn Infant’s tear_  
 _And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse!_

“Most,” repeated Jehan. “Why this most, I wonder?”

“I do not know,” put in Bossuet, who was suddenly standing, arm-in-arm with Joly, behind Enjolras, “but that is a marvelous double meaning there. The harlot’s curse—a curse passed on, of course, to the infant, but also a curse borne. I applaud the author. My regards, from one participant in wordplay to another.”

“Perhaps that is why he hears it most,” Combeferre was saying, and Enjolras nodded, finishing his thought—

“Because it is not merely a present curse; it is passed down to an infant, the future, while making a hearse—a past—of the marriage. The curse progresses.”

“Exactly,” said Combeferre.

“And it’s not just that the curse becomes the future,” Feuilly said. “How it becomes that future is equally important, because it’s not passed to the infant by a powerful oppressor. It’s perpetuated by its own victims; that’s its power.”

“Like a plague,” said Joly. He rubbed his nose with his cane. “One of the ones that spreads with contact, yet contact is necessary for care.”

“Yes, or like the mind-forged chains.” Feuilly flexed his hands. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

“But then,” Jehan said, “there’s also the fact that Blake’s a Romantic. He writes a great deal about he innocence of childhood, how sacred it is, how it must be preserved. And then there’s marriage too, which has the connotation of creating families and life…”

“So,” said Courfeyrac, “it’s the contrast. Blake sees the biggest difference between the misery and childhood and family, not between misery and palaces or misery and churches.”

Jehan ducked his head. “It’s an idea, anyway.”

Bossuet leaned across Enjolras to clap Jehan on the shoulder. “And a good one!”

“So all those things together build up to the ‘most,’ then,” said Bahorel. “The future, the cycle, and the contrast—though as far as the last goes, I say children can be devilish good fun, and you can’t spend your life pretending they’re cherubs. Write too many poems lauding their innocence and they will laugh at you, swipe your chocolates, and run away.”

“Still, their mischief,” Combeferre said, “hardly negates their need for protection from social ills. They are susceptible.”

“Again, like to disease,” Joly put in. “Ever noticed? Combeferre, you work the children’s ward in the Necker; I’m sure you have. Children, they seem to come down with illnesses after less exposure than adults. So you keep them safe, away from a sick parent, though you let a parent visit a sick child. So the easiest way for the cycle of misery to continue is for it to attack the children when they’re…impressionable, that’s it. But children also—well, they heal. They recover from attacks of illness that adults would never make it through. So, er—”

“So children are also the key to breaking the cycle,” Combeferre concluded for him, a smile crossing his face.

“Yes,” said Joly. “That. Health and education and that sort of thing, you know.”

“And love,” said Jehan. “Love, which is the strongest force to deliver the oppressed from curses and chains.”

“Love to whom the future truly belongs,” murmured Enjolras, “however strong a hold misery may have today.” He reached for the book, glancing at Feuilly. “May I?”

“Of course,” Feuilly answered, and Enjolras looked over the page.

“It may be about London,” he said after a moment, “—and I do not know how accurate it is, for I have never been to London—but it seems very much like Paris.”

Courfeyrac nodded. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“Misery,” said Feuilly, “does not distinguish by location. I know men who have worked in Marseille and Lyons and Lille, and who say that when it comes to these things, they are just like Paris. The whole world, not just one city, needs deliverance.”

Jehan, who had been musing with his chin on his hand, straightened up. “I shall write a poem,” he said. “A companion piece to Blake’s, similar in form. And I shall call it ‘Paris.’”

Courfeyrac and Bossuet began clapping and Bahorel found a glass to raise in a toast to Jehan’s endeavor, but he was not paying attention to their approval of his idea. Already, he had found a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket and smoothed it out to start writing a draft.

_As through the winding streets I roam_  
 _Amid the echoed cries of fear_  
 _Amid the cramped and darkened homes_  
 _Another, brighter cry I hear:_

_The clank of manacles that break_  
 _The loosened minds that shout with glee_  
 _The palace walls that start to shake_  
 _The rebel joy of Paris free…_


End file.
